[leobg]

I think it’s a function of information overload. It’s all just too much for people, so they look for the quickest “conclusion” in the truest sense of the word, i.e. the interpretation that allows them to end the discussion and no longer be bothered about it.

The internet, it seems to me, is the primary cause of this information overload. And it also makes it so much easier to just “swipe left” on people. In the real world, in a local community, you would not have been able to just walk away from conflict. But in the internet, you almost have to do it to stay sane.

[taylorius]

I agree with this, and I would add that groups interacting under the influence of such rapid, impersonal dismissals, has the effect of removing all nuance and subtlety from their language. I have a fear that if I were to take a time machine forward, Jules Verne style, I would see emoticons have entirely supplanted the alphabet.